How to Compress a Tape Recorded File?

For Whom Is This Directive Material?

You may be music or dance fanatic, a media professional or a researcher. Despite today’s digital recordings on CD, DVD and camera, the tape recordings are also inevitable for some segment of the users. Here is the technique to aid you effortlessly transfer and compress your tape recordings.

The Simple Roadmap

The conversion of cassette tape recordings to compressed formats is not a tough nut to crack. Here is the easy to do step-by-step guide for your audio/video compression needs:

Step #1: Transfer from tape to PC

Connect the tape player with the PC by using an audio cable. Your system must have been installed with recording software. It’s better to avoid Windows Sound Recorder as it may trouble you.

Make the software record the incoming sound as a WAV file in a fixed location on your PC other than the C drive (where program files are usually installed). Avoid recording in the MP3 format as recompression and decompression during the editing process may disrupt the file quality.

Check the recording by fixing the recording volume at the maximum and if the recording is not satisfactory, you need to adjust the volume and re-record again.

Step #2: Crop/ edit the file

You may want to crop the recorded, transferred file so that the silence or unnecessary background noise on the track can be deleted.

If you need to slot in a small recording bit into the original file, you can do it with the editing software like Audacity.

Step #3: Compress and save

This is a very crucial step in the final audio/video file creation process. During compression of a WAV file format into MP3 (for audio) or MP4 format (for audio/ video), chances are there that the quality of the original file may be degraded. To avoid this predicament, it’s better to ascertain the maximum level of compression without substantial quality variation.

For any media file the quality of the recording @ 64 kbps < 128 kbps < 256 kbps. At the same time, doubling-up the bit rate from 64 kbps to128 kbps won’t exactly double your media file quality as the smaller file itself has the most central stuff inside it.

You have copious freeware when you Google/ Yahoo or Bing down with the keyword, “Free WAV to MP3 convertor”

Step #4: Copy on CD/ DVD/ Blu-ray Disc

The iTunes software is a suitable option to copy your audio/video on a disc. You need to drag the folder containing the tracks and drop it on the left panel of iTunes. You have lot of other freeware to execute this task.

You need to insert a blank CD (write once)/ CD-RW (re-writable)/ DVD or Blu-ray disc into the respective disc drive and start burning the folder on your PC upon the disc.

Now your final audio/ video is ready and you can carry and play it anywhere you need…